What is medical identity theft? How can it put a patient in jeopardy? How are data breaches involved?
Healthcare fraud is costing American taxpayers up to $234 billion annually, based on estimates from the FBI.
One form of healthcare fraud, known as medical identity theft, has its own staggering statistics:
1.42 million Americans were victims of medical identity theft in 2010, according to a 2011 study on patient data privacy and security by the Ponemon Institute. The report estimates the annual economic impact of medical identity theft to be $30.9 billion.
The harm medical identity theft causes patients is often overlooked. With its serious health risks, medical identity theft can be far more dangerous than other forms of identity theft. When a victim’s records are merged with a thief using the same identity, for instance, that record becomes “polluted,” and the victim may be denied treatment or be misdiagnosed based on this inaccurate information. In addition, patients may be denied life insurance or billed for services not rendered.
Data breaches – A major source of medical identity theft.
Whether caused by theft, loss, human error, or hacking, data breaches put patient data at risk for medical identity theft. The number of healthcare data breaches has risen dramatically, increasing the likelihood for medical identity theft; in 2011, more than 18 million patients were listed on the HHS’ “Wall of Shame” as having their protected health information (PHI) breached.
Read more and see examples in Government HealthIT article.